General Manager of Dominica Water and Sewerage Company (DOWASCO), Bernard Ettinoffe, has made an appeal to the public to conserve the country’s water resources.
In fact, Ettinoffe said the company has an educational process to create awareness as to why water should be conserved.
“We still enjoy an abundance of water in Dominica and is still willing to assist some of our neighbours, but we need to conserve what we have because it is also costly to get that water to our homes,” he stated last week. “We do have policies to ensure water conservation, but most importantly is the educational process to educate people, create awareness to why we should conserve water.”
Ettinoffe pointed out that there are some areas in Jamaica where people receive water two days per week only.
“The same has happened in countries like Trinidad and St Lucia there is a water emergency, in Antigua there is a water emergency, so hence the need for us to conserve what we have,” he pointed out. “When we look at Haiti, it is another country that is water stressed or water scarce. We are still appealing to people’s consciences, still educating the public as to why we have to conserve so we do not have to go to that point at all.”
Meantime Public Relations Officer of DOWASCO, Edward Registe pointed out that there are certain areas in Dominica where customers are experiencing low water pressure.
“People who want to continue to water their lawns and have sprinklers on for the entire day, we have to consider changing that,” Registe warned. “Let us ensure that we conserve water, because it is not an infinite resource, it is something that we can lose if we do not manage it properly.”
but this is the same ettinoffe that washing his jeeps all the time, no examples to people. it seems like this is for one set.. SHOW SOME EXAMPLE.
For a start Dowasco should make sure every one connected to their supply should have a meter. That is only fair.
The island with so many rivers and so much rain has to conserve water? The real problem is the contamination via the climate engineering (chemtrails) producing acid rain along with the problem of the people using the herbicides and pesticides which get washed into the waterways poisoning everything. They need to ban gramasone and roundup from this island.
It seems like the only way to conserve water is to keep the tap closed when it’s not in use, while trees are being destroyed on the river banks and houses being built.
First the source needs to be protected.
Hello Shaka Zulu, I am with you on this one, very true. But we still must plant more trees, close to the source of our rivers in order to save them. But by the way we once shipped water to St Maarten,do you remember that? Yes water tankers would come to cane field to fill up, but how the country got paid is another story. So,while we can ship water there must be a proper system put in place to monitor all revenue coming into some special account, not under Dawasco.
There is a gentleman in Pottersville watering the sidewalk infront his house every morning. Yes I said watering….you’d swear is lawn he wetting so…. now I KNOW there are DOWASCO employees passing that route every morning as well. Everybody turning a blind eye. But go ahead DOWASCO talk about policy still.
Oh yeh I forgot to mention….I think he doh have meter…..so why should he care about water conservation? Huh DOWASCO?
DNO, I mean, really! Is that the best photo in your library?!
Bernard,for the past donkey years every week is a supply cutoff due to “system maintenance”…and now you talk about conservation?
What happened to the Forest Rangers? In the 1950’s and the1960’s these were men patrolling the forests and in some cases even planting trees which had fallen down. The trees in the forests protected the rivers especially close to the river sources from the sun. Dominica need to protect the rivers sources. Monies should be allocated in our Budgets to protect our rivers if we are to return to Agriculture which is a must for the island and people’s survival.
Do we remember when our water problem began? The Senior may remember but I do not believe the young people know or want to know. Let me refresh your memories.
This water problem and River Drying up situation began during the time of a company called “Dom Can Timbers ” a Canadian controlled company came to Dominica to cut trees to make lumber. The company was supposed to employ locals to replant the trees which they did not do so our forests and rivers suffered the fate. Save the forests plant the trees, grow the foods.
Here we again have a case of people in charge do not know what they are saying. Dowasco is the water authority but asking people to conserve water when they are the sole provider. Here are a few questions. Has the average annual rainfall over the last 10 years changed in Dominica? Has the amount of rainfall in our mountains changed over past 20 yrs? Has there been an increase in population putting a stress on our water supply? Has there been increased irrigation of agriculture farms and watering of residential lawns? Has our vegetation cover changed over last 20 years? Some plants take up more water than others. Lack of vegetation will lead to Haiti. Have we measured changes in river discharge volumes over the decades? From my knowledge most of the water in the rivers in Dominica flows to the sea. With so many islands needing water water we should by now have a couple 100k storage tanks near our ports shipping water to these islands. We talk with no solution or vision. There is one
…thing to have policies and another to have effective visionary and forward thinking policies. I think some of us get into places just to collect a paycheck and that’s it. We can do better than this. When we can identify these issues we will find out what we need to do to conserve if there is a water availability issue and do what needs to be done on a national level.
Smh. The inconvenience truth. Some must speak. THANKS sir.
Message to Govt, butt out of our lives, leave people only to manage their own affairs.
DNO, you could do a little better on the photo wee.
You all should put policies in place so people will learn to appreciate the importance of water. Charge them!
You cannot compare Dominica to Antigua. Millions of gallons of fresh water enter the sea from our rivers.How can you conserve that?
But most of our rivers are drying up, they are just small streams now so we do have to consider conservation. We are taking too much for granted in Dominica.. May God continue to bless our Nature Island.